With Halloween over the weekend, what better to write about this week than what scares us? If our positive near-term market outlook proves to be overly optimistic, we believe one—or perhaps more than one—of these five things will likely b

The S&P 500 Index has gained more than 20% so far this year, making more than 50 record highs along the way. Certainly nobody should be upset with that return if that was all 2021 brought us. However, we see signs that there could be more gains t

We have used most of the superlatives we know to describe corporate America’s stunning performances over the past two earnings seasons. Despite lofty expectations, results exceeded estimates by the biggest margins we’ve ever seen (and one

Last week, Congress was able to push back a fast-approaching deadline for raising the debt ceiling to December. Markets applauded the move with a relief rally. Despite decreased uncertainty in the near term, we may be confronted with the same problem

Index Performance

U.S. and International Equities

This quarter provided mostly negative results for the major market indices. The top performer and standout was the bellwether Dow Jones Industrial Average. The internat

LPL Research is downgrading its 2021 U.S. GDP growth forecast from 6.25–6.75% to 5.75–6.25%. Growth is likely to come in at an annualized pace near 5% over the second half of the year. So, while expectations have been tempered, the recove

Until recently, we expected the 10-year Treasury yield to end the year between 1.75% and 2.0%. Now, however, there are two key elements suggesting we are unlikely to see significantly higher interest rates by year end: The Delta variant’s impac

Several policy-related risks loom in September and October that may lead to an increase in market volatility. The debt ceiling needs to be raised (likely by mid-October), the government needs to be funded to avoid a shutdown by the end of September,

Fun Fact Friday: The Dow Jones Transportation Average is actually the oldest US stock market index in existence, even older than the more-popular Dow Jones Industrial Average. Charles Dow developed the index, originally called the Dow Jones Railroad

This week in the latest LPL Market Signals podcast, Ryan Detrick and Lawrence Gillum discussed global central bank policy, recently weakening economic data, and where stocks and bonds could go the remainder of this year.

In today’s